Birkeland currents

i have been following the posts about the electric sun
my interest is the birkeland currents, this link gives some insight http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/wcurrent.html
my problem is understanding how these currents flow through space
"how is the initial contact made"?
why is it that radio astronomy has not maped these current flows?
yours daft as ever wolram

In the succeeding decade Birkeland generalized his theory of the
aurora to other astronomical phenomena, asserting that sunspots,
Saturn's rings, and even the formation of galaxies can be
explained by electrical currents and magnetic fields moving
through the tenuous conducting gasses of space. In 1904 he wrote
that 'space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of
all kinds.' For the first time, he had glimpsed the plasma
universe."
http://www.pacificsites.com/~cmorford/Her_Sci/E_U/Defining_Plasma.htm [Broken]
is there any new research about this theory???????

The reason that radio astronomers haven't detected such currents is that they are basically quiescent and don't emit radio waves. They would have to oscillate, or emit syncrotron radiation, or some such to be detectable.

Mainstream solar scientists have been working for fourty years with a plasma/magnetic-field model of solar activity, called magnetic reconnection, and the theory hasn't panned out. It doesn't supply nearly enough energy for the events involved, nor do they display the time duration, the structure or other observed properties. A goodly percentage of solar scientist will tell you flat out "we don't have a workable theory", so it's doubtful that extending the idea into deep space will make the theory work.

Something seems to be involved beyond plasma and magnetic fields.

Probably the most intriguing aspect of the Aurora is that fact that it is confined to such a small band. What is the mechanism that confines it?

i have seen the phrase magnetic reconnection used before can you
explain the meaning? your saying these energy circuits exist but do not carry high levels of energy, can you say how much energy they carry? i get the feeling ive run into the twilight zone reguarding
the electric sun theory.
all the best.

A sunspot typicaly has a magnetic field of about 4 KiloGauss, about the same as a ceramic speaker magnet, but spread over a volume of the order of a trillion cubic kilometers, so it represents a tremendous amount of energy. The theory is that the strong fields prevent energy from entering the spot region and that is why the spot is cooler than its surroundings. But when computer sims are run of this hypothesis the sunspot heats to surrounding temps in about 15 to 45 minutes, depending on its size. But sunspots may last for days, weeks, even months. So it's pretty obvious that a tremendous amount of energy is being poured into something beside the magnetic field.

Likewise when the total magnetic field energy for a solar prominence is calculated, and that prominence becomes a CME (coronal mass ejection) the field energy isn't nearly enough, by several orders of magnitude, to supply the CME energy. Now CMEs and sunspots are related, i.e. a sunspot region may produce a prominence, and it just so happens that the CME total energy compares to the sunspot total energy.

So I and a lot of other people want to know, where is this energy hiding? It isn't in the magnetic field.

The biggest problem is comsologists somehow think you can have magnetic currents without the "electric" part. As soon as one realizes that currents are electro-magnetic, as electrical engineers do, the explanations get quite simple for the sun, sunspots, aurora, etc.

Here are two sites that have quite a bit of information if you are really interested in the electric universe or plasma universe.